Room.
Binks began walking toward the right.
I followed behind him as he opened a door and led me into a small room. A man was waiting for us inside.
He was about five-eight and built stocky and muscular, like one of those NFL linebackers who had trouble seeing over the center but could deliver a hit like nobody's business. His skin was dark, a neat goatee, and he wore a dark gray suit. He looked at me as we entered.
'Detective?' I said.
'Detective Sevag Makhoulian,' he said. He ap proached and shook my hand. 'For short, people call me
Sevi.'
'Makhoulian…what background does that name come from?' I asked stalling for time.
'It's Armenian,' he answered patiently.
'Were you born here?'
'I was born in Yerevan, my parents emigrated here when I was very young.' His accent was noticeable but not thick, and his suit was as American as they came.
'Gotcha, don't mean to pry.'
'I know it's your job to do just that, Mr. Parker. I do appreciate your coming down here on such short notice.
And I must say I enjoy your work. Insightful, not to mention how nice it is to see a young man achieving success based on something other than setting fire to hotel rooms. It's a shame we had to meet under these circumstances. Curtis Sheffield speaks very highly of you.'
'How's Curt doing?' I asked.
'Aside from the bullet in his leg? He's just peachy.'
Makhoulian said this with a slight smile. Last year Curt had taken a shot that nicked his femoral artery while looking for a family that we believed had abducted a child. He'd been assigned to desk duty since then, and
I was lucky to have remained on his good side. Though he hated being off the streets, I think he secretly liked the attention from the opposite sex. Nothing sexier than a guy who took a bullet for a good cause. 'Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss, Henry.'
'It's not really my loss,' I said. 'The first and only time I met Stephen Gaines was a few hours ago.'
'Well then,' Makhoulian said, 'if his death isn't your loss, whose is it?'
'Someone else's,' I replied. 'Just not mine.'
'Somebody cared for this guy,' Binks interjected. We both stared at him. The M.E. was right. Yet as much I tried to, I still didn't know what to think about every thing.
The viewing room resembled a typical examining room, if all the machines and instruments had been removed. The only thing remaining was a long metal table. The table was covered by a sheet. Underneath the sheet was a body, about six feet long. Most likely be longing to a man named Stephen Gaines. A man who was presumably my brother.
'Before we begin,' Binks said, 'be warned that there's been extensive damage to the cranium.'
'Extensive?' I said, looking at Makhoulian.
'That's right,' he said. 'From the damage, we can gather that the muzzle of the murder weapon was held less than a foot from the back of his head, a 9 mm fired at near point-blank range. The apartment we found him in wasn't a pretty sight.'
'From the wounds,' I said.
'Not just that,' Makhoulian said. 'We found…how can I put this simply… paraphernalia. Pipes, needles.
You name the drug, it looked like Gaines was on it.'
I took a deep breath, said, 'How old is…was he?'
'Turned thirty a month ago,' Makhoulian said. Four years older than me, I thought. Still a young man.
'He's cleaned up the best we could, but…' Binks said, his voice trailing off. He knew from the look on my face that this was best done quickly, with minimal cushioning. 'Anyway, here he is.'
Binks leaned over the body, took two folds of cloth between his hands and gently pulled the cover back until it stopped just below the corpse's neck. From there I could see the victim's head. Or at least what was left of it.
Stephen Gaines was lying on the table faceup. A half dollar-size hole was blown out of his forehead. I could see the man's skull and brain, both shredded from the bullet's impact. His eyes were closed, thankfully.
When that cover came down, I felt like everything in my body dried up. My insides felt like a black hole, my heart, lungs, my blood, all of it drained away.
'That's him,' I said. 'The man I saw on the street.'
'This is your brother?' Binks said, eyes raised, curious more than sympathetic.
'According to the detective here,' I said.
Binks nodded, his mouth still open, as though ex pecting me to relate just how this felt. The truth was I wasn't sure yet. I'd seen enough corpses, visited enough morgues to have been able to distance myself for the most part from the realities of death. A reporter could go crazy letting each individual horror pile up upon their psyche. Like a doctor, you couldn't think of blood as blood, but more a by-product of your work.
'Where'd you say he was found?' I asked.
'Apartment near Tompkins Square Park,' the detec tive said. 'Odd place for someone with your brother's seemingly…limited means to be these days. Twenty years ago, maybe. But now? That's the heart of Stuy
Town. All young families and old folks.'
I nodded, trying unsuccessfully to process this while staring at the body.
'That's the exit wound we're looking at,' Binks said.
'The bullet entered just below the back of the right parietal bone and exited through the forehead with a slightly upward trajectory.'
Makhoulian took over. 'The first entrance wound, combined with what we know about Mr. Gaines, suggests that his killer was right-handed and slightly shorter than him.'
I listened to this. 'Wait,' I said, looking at Makhou lian. 'You said 'first' entrance wound.'
Makhoulian eyed Binks. Then he turned back to me.
Binks said, 'There was a second entrance wound. It went right through the occipital bone in the back of
Gaines's skull. That bullet was still lodged in his head when Gaines was brought here.'
'I thought you said he was shot point-blank,' I said.
'How can you shoot someone in the head twice from point-blank range?'
'Only the first wound was delivered from close range,' Binks said, his voice growing softer. His fingers traced the path of a bullet as he showed where the first bullet entered Gaines's skull. 'The second was delivered from about four feet away. From a downward trajec tory.'
Binks raised his arm with his forefinger and thumb cocked like a gun. He pointed it at the floor to demon strate the likely scenario. He continued, 'There were no muzzle burn or gases expelled from the second shot.
Despite the brain matter, the wound itself is oddly clean.'
'What does that mean?' I said.
'Well,' Binks said, scratching his nose with a gloved hand. 'The impact and the trauma suggest the initial shot was fired from very close range. The brain matter and impact site…'
'Impact what?' I said.
'It's where the bullet impacts after exiting the body,'
Makhoulian said. 'In this case, ballistics found the first bullet in the wall about six feet off the ground. But they didn't find the bullet itself.'
'So the killer took it,' I said.
Makhoulian nodded.
Binks continued. 'The entry wound is nearly devoid of gases or burn marks. Considering the devastation and the impact site, it has all the marks of a point-blank shooting. See, normally when a bullet is fired, espe cially from close range, the wound will leave burn marks on the flesh, which is literally seared from the heat. In this case, the burn marks were nearly unde tectable.'
'Why?' I asked.
'My guess?' Binks said. 'The killer was using a silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kind of
